ANTAKI, C., FINLAY, W.M.L. and WALTON, C., 2009. Choices for people with an intellectual impairment: official discourse and everyday practice. Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities, 6 (4), pp. 260-266.

Abstract:

Official policy talk of "choice" for people with intellectual impairments tends towards
fundamental life-choices (e.g. who to marry, what job to work at) at the expense of
the minor but more frequent concerns of daily living (when to wash, what to eat,
where to go in the evening). Statutes and Mission Statements are unspecific about
how any such choices, big or small, are, or should be, offered. It is also silent on the
relation of choices to institutional imperatives. To redress the balance, we report on
five everyday varieties of choices in a (British) residential home. The data come from
an ethnographic study of residential services for people with intellectual impairment,
located within a National Health Service Trust in the South of England. Over the
course of nine months, a researcher (one of the authors, C.W.) engaged with residents
and staff in two residences in the geographical boundaries of this Trust. He took
ethnographic field notes of everyday interactions, and made video and audio
recordings. Conversation Analysis was used to explicate the interactions. It showed
how staff, although undoubtedly well-meaning, can use the discourse of choice to
promote institutional managerial objectives, and we discuss the gap between such
practice and overarching policy theory and recommendation.